Myojin of Infinite Rage is the most on-theme and possibly the worst choice, with its 10 cmc. Likely to have come up sooner or later, so it might as well be now.
Slobad seems like a good call, seeing as you're likely going to be using sweepers that hit some form of nonland as well.
Anyone with haste works well with Worldfire. Urabrask the Hidden fits that role as well as slows down your opponents, who are already behind with the land-D.
If you move outside of mono-R, you have all kinds of other options.
Myojin won't come in with a divinity counter so how is that on theme..?
Play Norin since he won't he to your mass removal!!! Cast Worldfire and edit* ATTEMPT to kill your opponents with norin next turn >=) (and fail)
I don't see a way for you to Prowl off of Notorious Throng or do you just use it to make Faeries?
My general produces faerie rogues and so does Bitterblossom.
But I can cast Notorious Throng eot (with leyline) to just produce a lot of faeries for an alpha strike.
I have challenged myself to NOT go infinite in this deck.
Instead I have chosen to rely on a spell and faerie heavy build.
What exactly do I want this deck to achieve?
I want to be able to control the board when needed and exile my opponents library making little 1/1's that will slowly kill my enemies.
I feel like faeries are the most obnoxious of the tribes. People have memories of fear from the time that faeries ruled standard and I want to remind them of this through an army of fluttering Tinkerbell's in standard.
How do you go about making faeries scary?
One of the key players is good ole Coat of Arms. When you can generally push a few faeries out a turn with your general, its best to have a way to make them beefy.
Another beast in the deck is Gravitational Shift. It turns all my little rogues into beastly sized 3/1's. Typically it also hinders my opponents enough for me to pull out ahead.
The last card that drives my flying army is Notorious Throng. The rogues produced by Oona and Bitterblossom power the prowl cost of the spell. A nicely timed twincast on a prowled upon Throng will lead to an army of faeries that will drown my enemies in turns. The battle is epic and the end result always the same.
I am open to all suggestions. The deck has been a long work in progress and started off running 22+ different faeries.
The prank would have to be a ravnica background with Tarmogoyf dead center in the middle. I would love to see a price drop after one day of people selling away their goyfs
I've definitely gut shotted and dismembered my own creatures to prevent someone from getting any value out of a TR but in the mirror (and against RDW) if I cast it and you want to pay 2 life to gut shot your own bear, image, delver, snapmage, etc. I'm still up at least +1 on cards and up in tempo. It is also a card that could help me come from behind. I'm not saying it's the answer, but it's what I'm currently testing and if it turns out to be poor I will move on and keep testing other things. However, at least on paper, it looks like it should be solid.
If it sticks then its a blowout. If its in your hand and you don't have white then your SOL. If they trade the tempo loss so you don't get the advantage then they probably did it to prevent them from losing, so the tempo doesn't help you all that much.
You yourself have seen taht the tempo loss was better than letting them gain the life, so you shouldn't see it as a positive side. Its more of a negative side.
Then again, if you are a good player and do not get over confident and know your match-ups then its a great card. Hope it works well for you
Holy ****! Yoshi is back! May be time to write a new primer.
Goodsir you may be right
I have been so crammed down with work and college that I haven't been able to attend a single even for a while. I missed it so much I made legacy illusions just to be able to play illusions competitively lol.
I have a SCG Qualifier coming up so I am rearing to go. Back to the subject at hand.
@Swiftyman - I want to agree with Tiemly Reinforcements... I really do but if you are playing against a good enough player they will play around it. I have gut shot my own creature before just to prevent my opponent from getting life or creatures. I have also gutshot myself to prevent life gain on their part. Your opponents can work around the conditions of the card especially with gutshot and dismember being so popular in standard. I am not sure about it, except for the RDW match-up but that could be simply because my play group is very good.
SB in MM, then bring in as many Gut Shots, Dismembers, and Vapor Snags as possible. Being able to kill tempo with such things as Vapor Snag on their LOTU with Image on the Stack, or even just keeping them off early plays, can win the game. It also depends heavily on whether you're on play or draw.
IMMMM BAACCCKKKK :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
I feel that the mirror hasn't been strategized for yet because the meta isn't all about the mirror. As the deck shows up more and more then we will need cards to be in the board that focus purely on the mirror. For now I feel like stitched drake is good if it sticks and is a SERIOUS set back if it is bounced. I prefer to board it out and rely on moorland haunt. This match-up is as close to a mind game as most. If you are aggressive enough then they naturally feel like they HAVE to be defensive. If you get a moorland haunt and a white source early, then you are Braveheart until the end. Trick them into thinking that you have the best hand and bluff
[DISCLAIMER: i am running an aggro control style deck, most similar to merfolk]
alright after some testing i find that O-ring, while great, isnt quite as good in this deck as id want :/. I switched to Mono-U to help facilitate the build better.
Used this at a local FNM (ironically i think this is my first time at a FNM, i always come on saturday for legacy xD)
RDW: 2-1
RDW: 1-2
Tempered Steel 2-1
GW token: 2-0
Humans: 2-0
Solar Flare: 2-1 (honestly this guy should have won this matchup i think, i just got really awesome hands compared to his mediocre ones)
White aggro: 2-0 (Note- this deck had an AWFUL curve. 4 sun titan+ 4 elspeth =/= a 22 land deck...)
6-1-0
Notes:
Gitaxian Probe was a house. While playing Merfolk in legacy allows tapping out with a FoW in hand, this Standard illusion deck necessitates that i leave mana untapped to counter. With gitaxian probe, i both draw a card and gain crucial information.
Ratchet Bomb feels very nice in the sideboard, the ability to have it come in and devastate a lot of one-drop dependent decks, and especially the token deck.
I felt very scared in the Tempered steel matchup, their deck is basically a faster version of ours without permission. Those steel sabotages are probably what allowed me to win, countering signal pests and whatnot slowed him down a lot.
Phyrexian Metamorph is really convenient with grand architect, especially since the grand architect can tap for mana on the first turn you play it.
Spell pierce is very nice for protecting your lord of the unreal/ grand architect from nasteh burn/ other removal while still being able to play it a bit earlier.
Hmmm.... Say what you want about the guy, that was a good read and he really explained some choices well. I'm still not a fan of Snapcaster, but I guess now we can see why he didn't have O-Rings. Heck, he even admits wishing he had them.
What are you guys thinking after this read? He makes a TON of good points about Dragons. I had never thought about the fact that there is really no better flyer in the format right now.
@Xander... I'd cut the Titans down to 2 or 3... 4 is just asking for early draws where you don't want to get him right away. Maybee -2 Titan +2 Dragon?
The whole article I was sitting there thinking of disperse and after it was over I couldnn't believe he didn't put it in. Well in the comments below he replied to someone saying it probably should go in. So now I am fine. I still feel like his win was a fluke and he got lucky to not have to play against ANY mono red....
I don't want to be a naysayer, and admittedly I am planning on playing solar flare for major tournaments, although I am enjoying Illusions right now. But if this deck has terrible MU's against solar flare and Monored how is it even viable? Those are the 2 top decks at the moment so the deck needs to be built in a manner that at least gives you a 50/50 MU against those decks.........
Mono-red will decrease over time. But right now you are correct, and I agree we have a terrible match-up against Solar Flare. I don't want misstep in the main because it gives us just another dead card. I am working on a more conservative style that hasn't been 100% awful against flare.
Also there is another way to avoid mono-red at tournaments... Its unorthodox but I have done it before... You purposely get a draw or ask your opponent for a draw... This puts you in the X-X-1 bracket and RDW is NEVER in that bracket so it completely avoids one of your bad match-ups. I agree its unorthodox but it puts you against control decks typically and thats where Illusions is best.
I don't think the data you showed actually proves your conclusion.
Look at it this way:
Weenie decks on the first list: RDW - 8%, Elves - 7% Fauna Shaman - 7%, White Weenie 2% = 24% of the field. I don't know if what you called Mono Black was control or vampires, but I am guessing control, since on the other list you classify vampire decks as "Vampires". Also, Fauna Shaman is somewhat different from the others in that it is not so much a swarm aggro deck, but more recursion based.
Anyway, Weenie decks on the second list: Vampires - 8%, Quest - 5%, Boros - 4%, RDW - 3%, White Weenie - 2% = 22%, not that different from 24%, what actualçly happened is that the weenie decks changed to different weenie decks, but still weenie decks.
Quest was a combo deck not a weenie deck. They either won or didn't until GW quest showed up but that was later. Boros was mid-ranged and so was Vampires. I don't consider either to be a part of the data.
@ Ben Delat- I can see misstep in the board, but we are about to shirft towards control or combo if someone discovers one. It may good at this moment but we don't beat solar flare easily and its a dead card there. We already have Mana Leak, Dismember, Dissipate, and other solutions for quicker decks. I just feel misstep is situational and unless its played turn 1 or 2 it tends to be a completely dead draw later and a lot of the decks that use it don't run ponder or forbidden alchemy, so there is no library manipulation
I just feel like the deck needs more unfair cards and geist fits the "deal with me or lose" type of creature that just wins games by himself.
3 removal spells, and 6 counters should help him stay on the field.
Ok, so he gets blocked, big deal, moorland haunt helps turn this into another creature! Another thing, he's being played in practically all the u/w decks, just casting him makes your opponent play differently just for the fact that he's legendary. I think that's interesting.
Pretty much I just switched a probe for a timely reinforcements to offset the lifeloss of probe and dismember. And of course, the dudes may come in handy.
And it gets targeted by snapcaster.
Geist doesn't cause a deal with me or lose situation all the time. He causes a forced blocked most of the time and you only have 5 cards (dismembers and dissipates) that stop them from being able to block.
Gitaxian Probe sucks in multiples and it gives 0 library manipulation. I havent been too fond of it ever and I dropped it out of my build a long time ago. It kinda gives you a false sense of security. You "know" whats in there hand and you play around it but then they top deck the card you didn't expect. I prefer to just be a conservative player and it has never proven wrong.
TBH you will rarely get the dudes from timely and if you took out probe you would free up five slots. You could do something like 3 ponder and 2 forbidden alchemy.
Another thing: I think Todd Anderson used the probes because the meta was unpredictable. Unlike just a month ago you cant see someone lay down a land and know what deck they are playing. The probes let him know what was going on. I think we are past the point of not knowing what decks are on top.
In a very weenie based creature meta we're definetly won't be short of anything to counter...Another good tempo play for a good tempo deck...
It won't stay weenie based for long. This transition is common. Look at the cycle that hit when scars came in:
Standard Metagame October 2010
U/W Control 19%
Valakut 16%
Eldrazi Green 16%
Misc. U/x Control 13%
Mono-R 8%
Elves 7%
Fauna Shaman 7%
RUG 4%
Mono-B 4%
White Weenie 2%
Other 4%
Standard Metagame December 2010
Valakut 32%
U/W Control 17%
U/B Control 14%
Vampires 8%
RUG 6%
Quest 5%
Boros 4%
Genesis Wave 3%
Mono-R 3%
Elves 2%
Eldrazi Green 2%
BUG 2%
Other 1%
You should notice that elves, rdw, and fauna shaman were all a significant portion of the meta. Eventually they disappeared. This will happen again.
Sideboard includes Day of Judgment. This has played fairly well for me, but many draws are poor and I mulligan more than I'd like. Maybe another land? Ponder? Skaab Ruinator?
To make your draw easier I would do
-1 Vapor Snag
-1 Forbidden Alchemy
-1 Oring
-1 Sun Titan
+3 Ponder
+1 Land (Your Choice)
I feel like 3 Sun Titans are a lot and you dont want them in opening hand so you should use Ponder, Forbidden Alchemy, and Archivist to find them. You go up to a 6 drop so I would run a minimum of 23 lands... I run 22 in my fish deck and still miss land drops that I want for a turn 4 dragon. I can't imagine how playing a sun titan feels =/
You are running 8 bounce spells... which is a little intense, especially when 4 cannot do anything unless your opponent has a creature. I personally prefer Disperse, but you will find what you like.
Try these changes and tell me how your opening hand are. I bet they are better
Skaab Ruinator is rough in the UW list without hitting Forbidden Alchemy to turn it on or being behind in the first place. Fish has an easier time; my list has jace's archivist's to help.
I am actually going to build a deck with 4 snapcaster mage's I just got tonight and do some testing tomorrow....
I will see if he knew what he was talking about. -_-*
Myojin won't come in with a divinity counter so how is that on theme..?
Play Norin since he won't he to your mass removal!!! Cast Worldfire and edit* ATTEMPT to kill your opponents with norin next turn >=) (and fail)
My general produces faerie rogues and so does Bitterblossom.
But I can cast Notorious Throng eot (with leyline) to just produce a lot of faeries for an alpha strike.
Why are you playing Oona and NOT comboing!?!?!?!
I have challenged myself to NOT go infinite in this deck.
Instead I have chosen to rely on a spell and faerie heavy build.
What exactly do I want this deck to achieve?
I want to be able to control the board when needed and exile my opponents library making little 1/1's that will slowly kill my enemies.
I feel like faeries are the most obnoxious of the tribes. People have memories of fear from the time that faeries ruled standard and I want to remind them of this through an army of fluttering Tinkerbell's in standard.
How do you go about making faeries scary?
One of the key players is good ole Coat of Arms. When you can generally push a few faeries out a turn with your general, its best to have a way to make them beefy.
Another beast in the deck is Gravitational Shift. It turns all my little rogues into beastly sized 3/1's. Typically it also hinders my opponents enough for me to pull out ahead.
The last card that drives my flying army is Notorious Throng. The rogues produced by Oona and Bitterblossom power the prowl cost of the spell. A nicely timed twincast on a prowled upon Throng will lead to an army of faeries that will drown my enemies in turns. The battle is epic and the end result always the same.
I am open to all suggestions. The deck has been a long work in progress and started off running 22+ different faeries.
This leads to the deck list:
1 Oona, Queen of the Fae
Faeries
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Mistbind Clique
1 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Faerie Harbinger
1 Glen Elendra Pranksters
1 Scion of Oona
Non-Faerie Creatures
1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Trinket Mage
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Snapcaster Mage
Enchantments
1 Black Market
1 Rhystic Study
1 Dire Undercurrents
1 Gravitational Shift
1 Bitterblossom
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Phyrexian Arena
Tutors
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Liliana Vess
1 Increasing Ambition
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Shred Memory
1 Perplex
1 Damnation
1 Evacuation
1 Profane Command
1 Sudden Death
1 Sever the Bloodline
1 Sudden Spoiling
Counter Magic
1 Gather Specimens
1 Time Stop
1 Cryptic Command
1 Desertion
1 Spell Crumple
Artifacts
1 Coat of Arms
1 Expedition Map
1 Caged Sun
1 Guilded Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Talisman of Dominance
Instants
1 Twincast
1 Memory Plunder
1 Jace's Inguinity
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Soceries
1 Tunnel Vision
1 Knowledge Exploitation
1 Notorious Throng
1 Recurring Insight
1 Exsanguinate
1 Rite of Replication
17 Island
11 Swam
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Stripmine
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Urborg, Tomb of the Yawgmoth
1 Nephelia Drownyard
1 Secluded Glen
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Underground River
1 Watery Grave
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Temple of the False God
1 Mystifying Maze
If it sticks then its a blowout. If its in your hand and you don't have white then your SOL. If they trade the tempo loss so you don't get the advantage then they probably did it to prevent them from losing, so the tempo doesn't help you all that much.
You yourself have seen taht the tempo loss was better than letting them gain the life, so you shouldn't see it as a positive side. Its more of a negative side.
Then again, if you are a good player and do not get over confident and know your match-ups then its a great card.
Goodsir you may be right
I have been so crammed down with work and college that I haven't been able to attend a single even for a while. I missed it so much I made legacy illusions just to be able to play illusions competitively lol.
I have a SCG Qualifier coming up so I am rearing to go. Back to the subject at hand.
@Swiftyman - I want to agree with Tiemly Reinforcements... I really do but if you are playing against a good enough player they will play around it. I have gut shot my own creature before just to prevent my opponent from getting life or creatures. I have also gutshot myself to prevent life gain on their part. Your opponents can work around the conditions of the card especially with gutshot and dismember being so popular in standard. I am not sure about it, except for the RDW match-up but that could be simply because my play group is very good.
IMMMM BAACCCKKKK :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
I feel that the mirror hasn't been strategized for yet because the meta isn't all about the mirror. As the deck shows up more and more then we will need cards to be in the board that focus purely on the mirror. For now I feel like stitched drake is good if it sticks and is a SERIOUS set back if it is bounced. I prefer to board it out and rely on moorland haunt. This match-up is as close to a mind game as most. If you are aggressive enough then they naturally feel like they HAVE to be defensive. If you get a moorland haunt and a white source early, then you are Braveheart until the end. Trick them into thinking that you have the best hand and bluff
Spell pierce isnt standard anymore
The whole article I was sitting there thinking of disperse and after it was over I couldnn't believe he didn't put it in. Well in the comments below he replied to someone saying it probably should go in. So now I am fine. I still feel like his win was a fluke and he got lucky to not have to play against ANY mono red....
Mono-red will decrease over time. But right now you are correct, and I agree we have a terrible match-up against Solar Flare. I don't want misstep in the main because it gives us just another dead card. I am working on a more conservative style that hasn't been 100% awful against flare.
Also there is another way to avoid mono-red at tournaments... Its unorthodox but I have done it before... You purposely get a draw or ask your opponent for a draw... This puts you in the X-X-1 bracket and RDW is NEVER in that bracket so it completely avoids one of your bad match-ups. I agree its unorthodox but it puts you against control decks typically and thats where Illusions is best.
Quest was a combo deck not a weenie deck. They either won or didn't until GW quest showed up but that was later. Boros was mid-ranged and so was Vampires. I don't consider either to be a part of the data.
@ Ben Delat- I can see misstep in the board, but we are about to shirft towards control or combo if someone discovers one. It may good at this moment but we don't beat solar flare easily and its a dead card there. We already have Mana Leak, Dismember, Dissipate, and other solutions for quicker decks. I just feel misstep is situational and unless its played turn 1 or 2 it tends to be a completely dead draw later and a lot of the decks that use it don't run ponder or forbidden alchemy, so there is no library manipulation
Geist doesn't cause a deal with me or lose situation all the time. He causes a forced blocked most of the time and you only have 5 cards (dismembers and dissipates) that stop them from being able to block.
Gitaxian Probe sucks in multiples and it gives 0 library manipulation. I havent been too fond of it ever and I dropped it out of my build a long time ago. It kinda gives you a false sense of security. You "know" whats in there hand and you play around it but then they top deck the card you didn't expect. I prefer to just be a conservative player and it has never proven wrong.
TBH you will rarely get the dudes from timely and if you took out probe you would free up five slots. You could do something like 3 ponder and 2 forbidden alchemy.
Another thing: I think Todd Anderson used the probes because the meta was unpredictable. Unlike just a month ago you cant see someone lay down a land and know what deck they are playing. The probes let him know what was going on. I think we are past the point of not knowing what decks are on top.
It won't stay weenie based for long. This transition is common. Look at the cycle that hit when scars came in:
Standard Metagame October 2010
U/W Control 19%
Valakut 16%
Eldrazi Green 16%
Misc. U/x Control 13%
Mono-R 8%
Elves 7%
Fauna Shaman 7%
RUG 4%
Mono-B 4%
White Weenie 2%
Other 4%
Standard Metagame December 2010
Valakut 32%
U/W Control 17%
U/B Control 14%
Vampires 8%
RUG 6%
Quest 5%
Boros 4%
Genesis Wave 3%
Mono-R 3%
Elves 2%
Eldrazi Green 2%
BUG 2%
Other 1%
You should notice that elves, rdw, and fauna shaman were all a significant portion of the meta. Eventually they disappeared. This will happen again.
To make your draw easier I would do
-1 Vapor Snag
-1 Forbidden Alchemy
-1 Oring
-1 Sun Titan
+3 Ponder
+1 Land (Your Choice)
I feel like 3 Sun Titans are a lot and you dont want them in opening hand so you should use Ponder, Forbidden Alchemy, and Archivist to find them. You go up to a 6 drop so I would run a minimum of 23 lands... I run 22 in my fish deck and still miss land drops that I want for a turn 4 dragon. I can't imagine how playing a sun titan feels =/
You are running 8 bounce spells... which is a little intense, especially when 4 cannot do anything unless your opponent has a creature. I personally prefer Disperse, but you will find what you like.
Try these changes and tell me how your opening hand are. I bet they are better
I am actually going to build a deck with 4 snapcaster mage's I just got tonight and do some testing tomorrow....
I will see if he knew what he was talking about. -_-*